1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a flat-panel display (FPD), which can perform a desired process for an FPD substrate after establishing a vacuum atmosphere therein, and, more particularly, to an FPD manufacturing apparatus in which a vacuum chamber is divided into a chamber body and an upper cover, whereby the upper cover can be easily opened and closed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flat-panel display (FPD) manufacturing apparatuses are designed to feed an FPD substrate thereinto and to perform a desired process, such as an etching process, for the FPD substrate by use of plasma, etc. Examples of FPDs include LCDs, PDPs, OLEDs, etc. Among such FPD manufacturing apparatuses, a general vacuum processing apparatus comprises three vacuum chambers including a load lock chamber, a transfer chamber, and a processing chamber.
The load lock chamber is used to receive a substrate, which will be processed in the FPD manufacturing apparatus, from an external station for loading the substrate or to discharge a substrate completely processed in the FPD manufacturing apparatus for unloading the substrate. The transfer chamber is provided with a robot for feeding a substrate between respective chambers, so that it conveys the substrate, which will be processed, from the load lock chamber to the processing chamber or conveys the substrate, which was completely processed, from the processing chamber to the load lock chamber. The processing chamber is used to perform a film deposition process or etching process for a substrate by use of plasma or thermal energy under a vacuum atmosphere.
Due to the fact that a variety of gases or plasma is used in the processing chamber, equipment provided in the processing chamber may be damaged or polluted if a great number of processes are repeated and, thus, it is necessary to periodically exchange or repair the equipment. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 1, the processing chamber, designated by reference numeral 1, generally consists of a chamber body 10 and an upper cover 20, so that the upper cover 20 of the processing chamber 1 can be opened and closed for the maintenance and repair of the chamber interior. To open and close the upper cover 20, conventionally, a crane has been mounted to the top of a clean room in which the processing chamber 1 is provided, so that the upper cover 20 is opened and closed by use of the crane. Alternatively, the processing chamber is equipped with opening/closing means to open and close the upper cover.
Referring to FIG. 2, an example of the conventional opening/closing means for the upper cover 20 is illustrated. As shown in FIG. 2, the upper cover opening/closing means 50 is provided at the outside of the processing chamber 1 to open and close the upper cover 20. The opening/closing means 50 includes a vertical drive unit to vertically lift the upper cover 20, a horizontal drive unit to horizontally move the upper cover 20, and a rotating unit to rotate the upper cover 20. Additionally, the opening/closing means 50 is provided with a horizontal movement guide 60 to provide a movement path of the horizontal drive unit.
Hereinafter, the opening/closing procedure of the upper cover 20 carried out by the opening/closing means 50 having the above configuration will be explained. First, the upper cover 20 is lifted vertically by a predetermined height by use of the vertical drive unit included in the opening/closing means 50. In succession, the upper cover 20 is horizontally moved along the horizontal movement guide 60 in a state of being lifted. After completing such a horizontal movement, the upper cover 20 is rotated by 180° by use of the rotating unit. As a result, both the chamber body 10 and the upper cover 20 of the processing chamber 1 are opened to enable exchange or repair of respective equipment provided in the processing chamber 1.
However, the size of a substrate to be processed by the FDP manufacturing apparatus has been recently increased, and accordingly, the size of vacuum chambers included in the FDP manufacturing apparatus is rapidly increasing. For example, in the case of a current available vacuum chamber, an upper cover thereof not only has a large size of 3 by 4 meters, but also has a heavy weight of more than 3 to 4 tons. Therefore, in order to vertically lift the large-size heavy upper cover of the vacuum chamber, it is necessary to provide the vertical drive unit with an air cylinder having an extremely high capacity. Furthermore, the bulky upper cover exhibits an increase in the lack of stability when it is vertically lifted, adversely affecting maintenance and repair in the interior of the vacuum chamber.